Bergeron Everglades Foundation

01/06/2026

This young red-shouldered hawk is still learning the rhythms of the Everglades. Juveniles can be identified by their brown, streaked plumage and lighter eyes, which gradually darken as they mature. Raised in wooded wetlands and cypress swamps, red-shouldered hawks depend on healthy forests and clean water to hunt frogs, snakes, and small mammals.

Trail cameras give us a rare, undisturbed glimpse into these early life stages, moments when young raptors are honing their hunting skills, learning territory boundaries, and preparing for independence. Seeing a juvenile on the trail is a reminder that the Everglades isn’t just habitat, it’s a nursery for the next generation of wildlife!

Protecting this landscape ensures young birds like this hawk have the space and resources they need to grow, thrive, and one day take to the skies as seasoned hunters.

12/30/2025

White-tailed deer are a vital part of the Everglades ecosystem. 🦌
�In Florida, bucks grow and shed their antlers each year—typically shedding in late winter and regrowing through spring and summer, with velvet protecting new growth. Our trail cameras allow us to quietly observe these natural cycles, offering insight into movement patterns, habitat use, and the health of the land.

12/25/2025

Wishing you a very Merry Christmas.
May this season be filled with peace, gratitude, and the quiet beauty of Florida’s wild places.

12/24/2025

Christmas Eve in the Everglades, where golden light settles over the land and reminds us to slow down, give thanks, and cherish what’s been entrusted to our care.

12/23/2025

Could it be the same bear?

Three nighttime visits from a massive Florida black bear (Ursus americanus floridanus), each one captured on nearby trails in the Big Cypress.

Florida black bears once ranged across nearly the entire state, but by the 1970s, habitat loss, fragmentation, vehicle collisions and overhunting had reduced their population to approximately 300 individuals. Thanks to conservation efforts and habitat protection, their numbers have slowly rebounded, yet they still face the same threats today.

As Florida’s largest land mammal, black bears play a vital ecological role. They disperse seeds through their diet of berries and fruits, helping regenerate the forests and wetlands that sustain countless other species.

Here on 5,000 acres of pristine, privately protected land bordering Big Cypress National Preserve, this bear, and others like it, are safe from harm. A reminder that when we protect and steward land, we protect the life it carries.

📍 Captured by a Bergeron Everglades Foundation trail cam at privately owned Green Glades West in Big Cypress

12/17/2025

The Everglades has always been our family’s compass, from generations of Gladesmen and Gladeswomen who lived by the rhythms of this land to the restoration work we carry forward today.

Sharing this airboat tour and the story of how our family’s history is woven into this landscape with fellow conservation leaders reminded us why collaboration is essential. No single group can save the Everglades alone. Its restoration is a shared responsibility shaped by partnership, respect, and time spent truly knowing the land.

In the landscape, conversations become clearer, priorities become sharper, and the urgency of protecting Florida’s wild spaces becomes impossible to ignore. When you stand in the ecosystem you are fighting for, you understand its needs in a different way, and the work becomes personal.

The Everglades deserves nothing less than all of us working together, grounded in both its history and its hope.

-Diamond Bergeron
Vice President, Bergeron Everglades Foundation

The Everglades has always been our family’s compass, from generations of Gladesmen who lived by the rhythms of this land to the restoration work we carry for...

12/16/2025

The rabbit you see here is most likely a marsh rabbit (Sylvilagus palustris), a wetland species found only in the Southeast. Unlike its upland cousin, the eastern cottontail, marsh rabbits are strong swimmers, perfectly adapted to flooded terrain. They spend their nights feeding on aquatic plants and grasses, moving quietly through the marsh.

The other traveler is a Virginia opossum (Didelphis virginiana), North America’s only native marsupial. Opossums play an overlooked but vital role in the ecosystem: consuming ticks, carrion, and even venomous snakes. They’re naturally immune to most North American snake venom, allowing them to safely prey on species that few other mammals can.

Different species, same path. The Everglades at night is a web of shared space where survival depends on coexistence, not competition.

📍 Captured by a Bergeron Everglades Foundation trail cam at privately owned Green Glades West in Big Cypress

12/10/2025

The Everglades has two distinct seasons – a wet & dry season. During the wet season, May – November, the Everglades averages 52 inches of rainfall.

12/09/2025

Coyotes are highly intelligent and adaptable predators found throughout nearly every habitat in Florida, from pine flatwoods to the heart of the Everglades. Primarily nocturnal, they rely on sharp hearing and smell to navigate the dark, hunting small mammals, insects, and even fruit.

Coyotes are a naturalized species in Florida, meaning they weren’t originally native here, but they’ve naturally expanded their range over time without direct human introduction. That’s different from invasive species, which are introduced by humans and often harm native ecosystems. Coyotes have filled an ecological gap left behind by predators like red wolves, helping control prey populations and clean up carrion.

This one lingered just long enough to inspect our trail cam before deciding it had seen enough.

📍 Captured by a Bergeron Everglades Foundation trail cam at privately owned Green Glades West in Big Cypress

12/03/2025

A scratch or scrape is the most common found scent-marking sign for the Florida Panther. The panther uses its hind feet to push back dirt, pine needles and any other soft material into a small mound and will urinate or defecate. Marking odorants are a vital “bulletin board” for panthers, announcing their social & reproductive status to potential breeding
partners.

12/02/2025

What looks like an empty trail is anything but.

Within a week, a bobcat, an alligator, and a family of otters all passed this same stretch of earth, each following paths they’ve known for generations.

To the bobcat, it’s a hunting route.�To the alligator, a shortcut to deeper water.�To the otters, a safe path between wetlands.

This is what a connected ecosystem looks like. Every species moves through the same landscape in its own way, bound by the same flow of water that gives life to all.

📍 Captured by a Bergeron Everglades Foundation trail cam at privately owned Green Glades West in Big Cypress